PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM

The United States of Gulliver

Pat Boone, descendant of the legendary pioneer Daniel Boone, has been a top-selling recording artist, the star of his own hit TV series, a movie star, a Broadway headliner, and a best-selling author in a career that has spanned half a century. During the classic rock & roll era of the 1950s, he sold more records than any artist except Elvis Presley. To learn more about Pat, please visit his website.

While our nation writhes and moans under the new trillion-plus-dollar health care/student loan horror, our president and his close ally Andy Stern of SEIU/ACORN are engineering a new immigration “reform” plan that will give amnesty to 12-14 million illegal aliens. In addition to trillions more debt on our heads, the goal is to create that many more Democratic “progressive” voters. It’s a very obvious scheme, cloaked with apparent concern for poor immigrants, illegal though they are. I wrote the following in this space Aug. 9, 2008, and it bears repeating.

It’s hard to believe that we enlightened, practical, eyes-wide-open Americans are living in a fable, a virtual fairy tale – but more and more evidence is making the case that we are.

The “fairy tale” I refer to is actually a witty satire written by the brilliant author/politician Jonathan Swift in 1726. Because it was such an entertaining piece, it became a famous children’s story; but that was not the original intention of the author. Swift himself said, “The chief end I propose to myself in all my labors is to vex the world rather than divert it.”

That is, he wanted to focus his society on its folly. And that he did, eloquently. But little could he have imagined how accurately he would picture our society in America today. It’s startling. It’s disheartening. And it’s threatening to our very survival.

Remember? In Swift’s satire, a traveler named Gulliver finds himself in Lilliput, surrounded by a race of people universally one-twelfth his size. Though he wishes them no harm, and in fact is quite friendly toward the little people, his size intimidates them. So they conspire to get him drunk and lying on the ground – at which time they crawl all over him, staking him to the ground with countless little ropes. And when he comes to … he’s helpless.

You may not yet get the connection, but here are recent facts, revealed by none other than the Los Angeles Times, the truth teller in one of America’s unofficial “sanctuary cities” for illegal aliens:

40 percent of all workers in L.A. County (10.2 million people) are working for cash and not paying taxes. This is because they are predominantly illegal immigrants working without a green card.

95 percent of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens.

75 percent of people on the most wanted list in Los Angeles are illegal aliens.

Over two-thirds of all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal, whose births were paid for by taxpayers.

Over 300,000 illegal aliens in Los Angeles County are living in garages.

The FBI estimates half of all gang members in Los Angeles to be illegal aliens from south of the border.

Nearly 60 percent of all occupants of HUD properties are illegal.

21 radio stations in L.A. are Spanish speaking.

Of 10.2 million people in L.A. County, 5.1 million speak English, 3.9 million speak Spanish.

All these alarming facts have been duly reported by the newspaper that favors current sanctuary-promoting Mayor Villaraigosa and makes sure that anti-immigration enforcement demonstrations featuring angry shouts in Spanish and under Mexican flags – in American streets and parks – get ample coverage. So don’t doubt the figures.

Add to those some more recent stats:

Less than 2 percent of illegal aliens are picking our crops, but 29 percent are on welfare.

Over 70 percent of the United States’ annual population growth (and over 90 percent of California, Florida and New York) results from immigration.

29 percent of inmates in federal prisons are illegal aliens.

Are you beginning to see why I can’t get the story of Gulliver out of my mind?

Do you not see America as the benign giant up north that fails to defend its own borders or enforce its own laws, that looks the other way while some of its own citizens actually encourage the influx of illegals to do low-paying jobs, thinking it won’t matter seriously, and simply feeling compassion toward poor Latinos who seek a better life?

Can’t we Americans, uniquely generous and welcoming and compassionate toward those less fortunate, see that our generosity is being horribly abused, that our economy is being overwhelmed, that whatever benefits might have derived from crop pickers and day laborers and kitchen workers have long since been washed away by an avalanche of the illiterate, the unskilled, the dependent, and the even the violent and criminal?

Can’t we see that, like the drowsy Gulliver, we must rouse ourselves – quickly and decisively – and tear away any restrictions to the observance of our laws? That regardless of any cost economically, near or long term, we must root out all who are here illegally, and insist that they become Americans the old-fashioned way, legally and responsibly? And if they’ve committed crimes – in addition to illegal entry in the first place – they be deported immediately, out of our prisons and off our taxpayer support, and never allowed to return?

What kind of sleepy, addled, “politically correct,” bleeding-heart fools have we become? Even Hispanic Americans who became citizens legally and have contributed greatly to our society, beyond question, must recognize that 14 million invaders from south of the border – many hurrying to have babies at our expense just to anchor them as citizens here – are creating an unwelcome, unflattering and very dangerous burden on them, too!

Look, millions of us really care about a dad sneaking in to make money for his family, about a poor woman bringing a child for hospital care, about a responsible teen hoping for some kind of future. Question: How many can come move in to your house, at your personal expense? Isn’t there some kind of limit to what even caring people can shoulder, all at once? Responsible legislators can enact rules allowing for us, the overburdened taxpayers, to cooperate with foundations and pro bono medics to help the most needy – without completely dissolving all laws and saying, “Come one, come all!”

And how many trained jihadists do you reckon have joined the incoming throngs, to imbed in our cities and await instructions for the next 9/11?

If we don’t elect representatives, from president to Congress, to city halls and county supervisors, who will act to rid this country of criminals and enforce our borders, we are fools – and worse – headed for our place on the shelf beside the fabled Gulliver.

One horrible difference, though: Gulliver escaped and continued his travels. We won’t.